The legendary Homaro Cantu of Moto restaurant in Chicago talks about his plans for edible advertising and “multitools” like pans that can change shape. He covers sustainability, how we need to think differently about food as the population balloons, the difference between organic and local, and more.

He also discusses patents (he patents a lot of his food inventions) and later open-sourcing these patents:

Yes. I’m very big on open-source and that’s a contradiction for me, because I patent everything. But why do I patent everything? Because I want to be first to market. Most importantly, I want to take those patents one day and make them open-source.

He also talks about the benefits of their paperless kitchen:

Right now, downstairs my cooks are looking at a giant 60-inch screen projection and they follow their prep lists on this. We don’t use paper. And when they’re done, it knocks those things off the prep list. It can also speak with dishwashers who might not speak English.

Next time you’re in Chicago get a reservation at Moto. It’s fascinating, educational, experimental, multi-dimensional, mind-expanding, and most of all, really fucking tasty.

Moto is the best dining experience I’ve ever had by a factor of 10x. If you can swing it go for the 20 course Grand Tasting Menu and you might even get to don a pair of laser-proof safety goggles for a trip into the kitchen. And don’t forget to ask the bartender for a Bacon Martini.

For a limited time: If you upgrade or sign up for a Highrise Premium or Max plan, or a Basecamp Max plan, you’ll get a Campfire Premium account at no charge (it’s normally $49/month).

We don’t know how long we’ll be running this promotion, so if you’re interested you should act soon. Once the promotion ends you’ll still be able to keep your free Campfire account, of course.

Details on how to claim your free Campfire Premium account will be included with your Basecamp/Highrise welcome or upgrade email.

Thanks for your business.

Last week we launched a new feature in Highrise called Public Contact Cards.

The idea
Public contact cards make it easy to share someone’s contact information with anyone who needs it. For example, if a friend asks if you can recommend a plumber, and you have one you’d recommend in your Highrise account, you can share that plumber’s public card with your friend — even if they don’t have their own Highrise account. Now your friend has all the information they need to get in touch with the plumber.

The feature that could have been
As we thought about how to implement public contact cards we started thinking about all the possible options we could offer.

• One-click to import the data into your own Highrise account
• hCard support
• Email this contact info to someone
• Subscribing to the data so you’ll get updates if it changes
• And the list goes on…

The feature that is
When you face a long list of possible add-on features you need to step back and ask yourself: “What’s the core value? Why are we building this core feature?” In the case of public contact cards, the core value was being able to quickly share someone’s contact information over the web with anyone you want. It wasn’t hCard support, it wasn’t subscriptions to contact information, it wasn’t one-click import into your own Highrise account, etc. Those things might be nice, but they aren’t part of the core value. The core value is the simple display of the contact information. That’s 90% of the value.

Continued…

Craig Newmark’s editorial on net neutrality. This is a serious issue for anyone who uses the web (and anyone who wants to offer any services over the net).

Here’s a real world example that shows how this would work. Let’s say you call Joe’s Pizza and the first thing you hear is a message saying you’ll be connected in a minute or two, but if you want, you can be connected to Pizza Hut right away. That’s not fair, right? You called Joe’s and want some Joe’s pizza. Well, that’s how some telecommunications executives want the Internet to operate, with some Web sites easier to access than others.

Write your rep and tell them to keep their hands off the net. Tell them you want the net to remain neutral.

First, a recent rave for the 37signals job board: In “Sometimes you really do get what you pay for”, Dark Liquid talks about its search for a Rails Developer…

I must say I am really impressed with the 37signals job board. After only 3 days, we’ve already had 4-5 applicants to our ad for a Junior Rails Developer. We’ve posted on pretty much every free ruby-related job board around and got nothing back at all, so in this case, it seems you really do get what you pay for.

And now on to some recent postings on the board:

Happy Cog Philadelphia is looking for a Front End Developer in Philadelphia, PA.

The Sherwin-Williams Company is looking for a Web Developer in Cleveland, OH.

Vimeo is looking for a PHP/MYSQL Developer in NY.

Homes.com is looking for a Web Designer in Tallahassee, FL.

Ham in the Fridge is looking for a Senior Designer in Minneapolis, MN.

National Council State Boards of Nursing is looking for a Webmaster / Designer in Chicago, IL.

Vulcan, Inc. is looking for a Sr. Quality Engineer in Seattle, WA.

Singapore Telecommunications Limited is looking for a Usability Engineer in Singapore.

Crate and Barrel is looking for a Internet Project Manager in Northbrook, IL.

JibJab Media is looking for an HTML Engineer in Venice, CA.

Smack, Inc is looking for an AJAX minded, front-end developer in Toronto, Ontario.

TIBCO Software is looking for a AJAX Web Development Engineer in Palo Alto, CA.

Environmental Working Group is looking for an Applications Programmer in Washington, DC.

Design Kitchen is looking for an Interactive Strategist in Chicago, IL.

Find your next job or find your next team member on the 37signals Job Board.

Top Gear takes the Bugatti Veyron to 253 MPH. What a machine.

Thank you
It’s been just over 36 hours since we officially launched Tuesday afternoon. We’ve been overwhelmed by the response. All things considered, the launch of Highrise has been our most successful product launch ever. Thank you!

Some early stats
Highrise is definitely getting a workout. Here are some early stats on the amount of data that has been added to the system so far:

• Over 150,000 contacts
• Over 15,000 notes
• Over 10,000 tasks

Another interesting stat is that 9% of the people signed up are using OpenID. Lots of early adopters on board!

We heard you: Here come Cases for everyone
When we launched we only offered Cases on Plus, Premium, and Max plans. There was a fair bit of negative reaction to that decision. We hear you. So today we’ve made a change. Now all plans include some Cases.

• Plus, Premium, and Max continue to include unlimited Cases
• The new Solo plan (explained below) includes unlimited Cases
• Basic includes 5 Cases
• Personal includes 3 Cases
• Free includes 1 Case

These case numbers are for open Cases. That means you could have 12 cases on the Basic plan, but only 5 could be open at one time (the others must be closed). This is exactly how Active/Archived projects in Basecamp work.

We hope you like this change.

Don’t need to share Highrise? Go Solo for $29/month
Another interesting bit of feedback we received was that there seem to be a fair number of people who will be using Highrise on their own. They don’t have a staff, they don’t have co-workers. They are independent contractors, or freelancers, or contract salespeople, or real-estate agents, or 1-person business owners, etc. They want to get the most out of Highrise, but they don’t need a muti-user account.

So we’ve made a new plan just for them. The Solo plan. The Solo plan is basically the same as the Plus plan, except it’s only for a single user. You get 1 gig of space, unlimited Cases, SSL, 20,000 contacts, but only 1 user. If your company grows or you want to bring multiple users in down the road you can just upgrade to Plus and you’ll have up to 15 users.

More contacts on Free and Personal too
We’ve moved the free plan up from 25 contacts to 250 contacts. Personal also gets a boost from 250 to 500. We hope that helps free and entry level customers get more out of Highrise.

Did you go Plus too early?
If these subscription changes have you reconsidering whether Plus is the right plan for you, it’s easy to change. If you’re on the 30-day trial, you can downgrade (or upgrade) before the end of the trial and only be charged for the plan you’re at on the day of billing. If you already paid for plus by upgrading from free and would really like a refund for the difference between plus and the plan you choose, write us and we’ll give you a credit.

More disk space
We’ve also increased the file storage limits on all accounts.

• Max moves up to to 50 gigs (was 20 gigs)
• Premium moves up to to 10 gigs (was 3 gigs)
• Plus moves up to 3 gigs (was 1 gig)
• Basic moves up to 500 megs (was 400 megs)
• Personal moves up to 250 megs (was 200 megs)

Regarding integration and a Highrise API
For those asking about Basecamp/Highrise integration: We have some ideas. First things first. We wanted to get the Highrise basics right. We’ll be working on some integration ideas this year for sure. The Highrise API is also on the way. We’re excited to see what people can dream up. Stay tuned.

So there we are!
Off to a great start! Thanks again for the feedback, thanks for your ideas, and thanks for your business. We have some great stuff planned for Highrise. Stay tuned.

I’ve been doing 98% of our customer/tech support for about 3 years now and it’s time to pass the torch to someone who’s better at it than I am ;)

We’re looking for someone (Chicago based or remote—it doesn’t matter) who can head up customer support.

All email
We get about 125-150 emails a day from customers across our entire range of products. About half of them are really quick answers (under a minute with a standard response or FAQ link), another quarter are a touch more involved, and the remaining quarter can take a 5-10+ minutes each depending on the issue.

We’d also like this person to browse the forums for our products and pop in and offer a hand when people are stuck.

Passion wanted
We’re looking for someone who is passionate about 37signals, passionate about simple solutions to common problems, and passionate about helping people get back on track quickly. Strong writing skills and the ability to get to the point quick are a big plus.

Think you’re the one?
If you think you’re the guy or gal, please drop me a line at jason at 37signals dot com. Do me a favor and include “Customer Support Position” in the subject so I can easily corral these into the proper folder.

I can’t promise I’ll respond to each one, but I will review them and get in touch if we think you may be the right person.

Thanks.

Ring. It’s for you.

Ping. You’ve got mail.

It’s a new contact, a lead, a customer, a journalist. It’s someone saying something important you need to remember.

What do you do now? Where do you log notes from the conversation? Where do you put the contact information? Where do you set up your next action?

In Highrise.

The answer to the avalanche
So many people. So many phone calls, emails, notes, follow-ups, and tasks. Who’s this person again? When did we last speak? What did we talk about? Has anyone else in my company talked to this person? What’s supposed to happen next? Highrise is here to keep track of it all.

A personal assistant for everyone in your company
When you use Highrise, contacts and communication history can be shared across your entire company. No more “Jim has the client’s number and he’s out of the office today.” No more “I don’t know what Jane told the printer last week.” No more “Oops, I didn’t know you already called her back — I just did too.” With Highrise, everyone’s on the same page.

One history, many interactions
Highrise is your homebase for everyone that’s important to your business. It puts together all those little points of contact so you can see the bigger picture. It makes one history out of many interactions. Highrise helps you make sense of it all.

Not too little, not too much
Your address book doesn’t do enough. Traditional CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software tries to do too much. That’s why we built Highrise. It’s the just-right, more thoughtful way to keep track of the people, conversations, and tasks that are the lifelines of your business.

Highrise. Good business is about people. Keep in touch.

This is the final preview before we launch Highrise. In this preview we’ll talk about Cases.

What are cases
Cases help you keep related notes, files, images, and people together on one screen. You can add notes directly on a case or attach a note you’ve entered on a person page to a case.

Attaching a note to a case
When you enter a note on a person page you are given the option to also attach it to a case. The note will then appear on the person’s page and also on the case page.

That note is now added to the case:

The Case
Here’s what a case might look like:

If a note is attached to a person and a case the person is also listed in the sidebar of the case. This allows you to see who’s part of the case.

Continued…